Black Scales: Drakengard 3 Inverted History
by CandyAutumnTiger
Summary: Long before the third story, the tools of the gods, dragons and watchers, now have differing goals. The dragons seek to destroy humanity, and the watchers are indifferent. Eterna, an Arderer with the power of flame instead of song, and afflicted with the White Wyrm, seeks to destroy her sisters with her young watcher, Nakiel. THEME SONG: とある竜の恋の歌 by Itou Kanako
1. Chapter 1: Failure

Eterna's black sword cut through a multitude of Imperial soldiers as she ran towards Cathedral City to confront her sisters. She had followed her sisters' conquests of the land through their purifying flames. The commoners of the land loved them. They must have put up a very charming front to win the hearts of so many people. Eterna knew otherwise, and she was going to stop all of them.

She felt a harsh wind at her back, and looked up to see her watcher, Nachiel, swooping through the skies. His feathers glowed with the heat of a sun, and he crushed his fair share of soldiers with his giant claws. She gave him a small smile, and he returned her gaze with a quick nod.

The dusk was approaching from the horizon. Eterna sprinted as fast as her body could take her. The wyrm gave her incredible stamina, so she did not worry about slowing down. The only thing that could stop her now was one of her beloved sisters.

Nachiel screeched as a giant armored beast seized one of his six wings. Feathers and muscle strained under the enemy's grip, and Nachiel tried to uppercut the giant with a sharp punch. Two other giants had already closed in, and Nachiel still tried to throw them off.

"Nachiel!" Eterna yelled.

"Eterna, you must get to your sisters! Go!" He had already pushed open an imposing door leading to the Arderers beyond. She knew he would be fine. Eterna turned and ran through the passageway.

"Goodbye, fool," Nachiel uttered, a claw already embedded deep in a beast. He felt her cold resolve to kill her sisters in her gaze earlier. She would never rest until they were all dead.

 _Olim olim Deus accelere_

 _Hoc saeculum splendidum_

 _Accelere fiat venire olim_

The sisters awaited their eldest within a bright throne room. They had killed the lord who toiled away here months ago. How could such a beautiful place house such a corrupt leader? Alpha, in all her wisdom, still questioned the minds of men.

Ah, footsteps. _She_ was here, and not for a friendly family gathering. Alpha acknowledged her older sister with her forest green eyes. Eterna had plenty of scars across her body, but the wyrm was not going to let her die so easily. Alpha or her sisters would have to finish the job.

"It's been a long time, Eterna," Alpha said sternly.

"Really, Alpha? I didn't think so," Eterna smirked. Alpha looked about her age now, but still as serious as when she was created. Eterna wanted to jokingly state "My child, you've made me proud," but this was hardly the time for it, and none of them considered Eterna that way.

"Look at you, still bloodthirsty as always. I can see the crazed look in your eyes."

"Stop, Alpha, you're _embarrassing_ me."

Alpha sighed, "That wasn't supposed to be a compliment."

The next sister, with vivid orange clothing, gasped, and waved excitedly to Eterna. She yelled Eterna's name, and Eterna regarded her much more warmly than Alpha. She seemed to be doing well, even though the sisters had killed many of the rich lords of the land to stand before Eterna in this throne room.

The next sister had long straight golden hair that covered half her face, and she seemed to stand straighter when Eterna looked her in the eye. She laughed deep in her throat, and it came out as a kind of growl.

The crimson sister had a pleading look in her eye, and she asked for Eterna to reconsider her actions. Eterna narrowed her eyes at the red girl, and the red girl seemed a little surprised to get a reaction out of her sister.

The lavender sister scoffed at her red sibling, and hoped to get the fight started so she could get back at Eterna. Even now she dreamed of the comforts of exquisite banquets and of the flesh, and she gripped her spear tighter.

"Well, I can't wait to talk about my experiences with you all, since you seem to love me so much."

"Enough talk, Eterna. This is the end," Alpha said. The four other sisters drew their weapons and approached Eterna.

Eterna brandished her obsidian blade as well. "This is the end, all right."

The lavender sister lunged at Eterna first, attempting to pierce her with the sharpened end of her spear.

"Eterna, you weren't planning on getting wrecked by your sisters today, were you?" Eterna parried the cross shaped weapon with a swipe from her sword.

"Leave me alone."

"I hope your thighs aren't aching from your travels here…"

"Your yakking is hurting my ears."

"If you aren't dead after this, you could join me in leisure at my castle. It's lovely, really," the purple girl said. Eterna responded with a slice to the girl's arm, and she had to retreat.

The crimson girl approached Eterna next, tensing her metal claws.

"Please, Eterna, we need to stop this fighting! I know you've never been this way before! Let me help you recover!"

"You approached me first," Eterna breathed as she tried to hit the red girl in her side. Red brought the claw to her side to hinder the blow, and sparks scattered on the polished marble floor.

"There is one thing you can help me with, and that's dying!" Eterna yelled, and she brought her blade down on Red's claw, ungloving her. Red quickly reached for her weapon, and barely dodged a blow from Eterna. She fled as well, trying to stifle a cry.

"The hound with no home has no place to call its own. It may find a dwelling, but it's spirit remains in the roads beyond," the yellow girl murmured.

"Did you say something that made sense? …Guess not," Eterna said, and she caught a jab from her sister's golden scissors on her pauldron. Gold was thin, and wobbled as she walked, but her strikes were quick and powerful.

"Wait and see what happens in the present. Maybe something bad will happen," the yellow girl grinned.

"Stop being creepy!"

Gold only laughed, and she pushed her hair away with the blunt of her scissors. But suddenly, she yawned, and ran away to join her defeated sisters.

"…Ok," Eterna said, and she spun around to see a giant blade coming down above her.

"Eternaaaaa! I've gotta pack for my trip and you're making such a fuss here! Let's go together, ok?" The orange girl leaned on her blade, waiting for Eterna's answer.

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because you're gonna be dead!" Eterna yelled as she stabbed at her sunny sister. They both held each other off with their swords, and Eterna couldn't manage to strike a blow on her.

Alpha glared at Eterna, and held her hands together.

"Enough. Sandalphon, come!"

The throne room was barely large enough to hold the large white wyvern that barreled through the large doors of the chambers. The beast glowed with electric ferocity, and its feathers were tinged with soot. The monster was bound with unearthly chains, and its breaths came like exhaust from a volcano.

"Alpha, that's no angel you have there. What a monster," Eterna marveled.

"Shut up, sister! You have no right to judge me. Us Arderers were meant to share power equally, and you would kill us to take all that for yourself? You should be ashamed of yourself!"

"Uh huh, yeah, be quiet! Just die!" Eterna yelled as she hacked into the many scales and down covering the demon. This creature was much more larger and imposing then when she saw it last. Alpha really had no care for her friends.

Sandalphon shot a hot yellow beam at Eterna, and she was caught off guard for a split second. This mistake made her lose her grip on her blade, and the beam ate through her arm. She collapsed onto the cold floor, red blood already smearing across the polished surface.

"Good, Sandalphon. Finish her."

"I'll… kill you!" Eterna yelled. Nachiel seemed to have heard her suffering, because just then, he burst through the entry to the room, red and black from battle.

"Sing for me! Nachiel!" Eterna cried, fire pouring from her mouth. Nachiel let loose and ear-splitting scream of energy.

"Alpha!" the sisters screamed. They blocked Nachiel's attack with a wall of fire.

"How is he still alive…" Alpha mused. That watcher was soon done for. Sandalphon would be sure of it.

Sandalphon's fire seared Eterna and her companion, and they fled with little energy down the slope that led to the throne room.

Alpha and the sisters watched them go, also exhausted from the battle. Alpha turned to her siblings. "Eterna really thought she could kill the Arderers? What a stupid girl." She laughed to herself.

"Now, let us bathe the world in scorching flames."


	2. Chapter 2: Reincarnation

Eterna and Nachiel lay in a stone structure,hidden from Sandalphon and her proud sister. The light had already faded, and only the moon watched over the two. Out in the forests, far across the way, a pack of wolves howled. Eterna swore she could hear the seething of some distant dragon, hunting for humans.  
What was left of her arm burned, and she could see what looked like magma, pulsing under the layer of scales that concealed her wound. She heard the wyrm in her head, whispering.  
 _Wish. The dragon's wish. Will it and you will be reborn._ Her very soul felt strangled by this cruel force.  
 _No, I will not wish._ The voice was silent. _This is a memento for my stupid mistakes. If I hadn't come here, Nachiel would still be…_  
Nachiel. The watcher was barely breathing now. Eterna stroked his dappled feathers. She could only offer her comfort in this dark time of his life.  
"Eterna," Nachiel whispered.  
"I'm here, Nachiel!" Her throat burned with sorrow.  
"I was never friendly with you in the beginning, but, every moment spent together, hunting, fighting your sisters, it was thrilling."  
"Nachiel…"  
"I'll miss our memories," Nachiel mouthed, as he fell into sleep. Eterna felt warm tears welling up in her eyes.  
"Nachiel, no! Don't leave me," she cried. It felt like the weight of her mistakes was crushing her heart.

It was morning, and before Nachiel breathed his last, a crystalline substance seemed to cover his entire body. His feathers turned to salt, and his fiery skin cooled to onyx black. Eterna felt a cracking within his body.  
"I hear a sound," she whispered. As she stood, an opaque egg seemed to lie in the in the center of Nachiel's chest. He was frozen in crystals. She touched the egg, and its opaque interior faded to reveal a translucent fluid inside. Within, she saw what looked like a human child, but pale and like granite. Electricity crackled within the orb, forming primitive veins in the egg.  
Is this reincarnation? Her chest was heavy from crying, and she wanted to reach into the orb and embrace the creature inside, no matter how bizarre it was.  
She took her blade gently to the egg, and upon piercing it, the leathery skin gave, and the clear liquid inside drained to liquid metal upon meeting air. The child awoke, and its granite face began to take on more animalistic features. Feathers and wings like Nachiel sprouted from its body. The forming watcher's thoughts invaded Eterna's mind.  
 _What's your name?_  
"Eterna," she said aloud. "I knew your previous incarnation."  
 _...Was he strong?_  
"Very." The creature let the answer sit with him for a while.  
 _What's my name?_  
"Nach… no, Nakiel. I'm assuming you keep the same form for your name?"  
 _Yes, Ms. Eterna._  
"No need for the formalities. Come, I will carry you to a cottage by the sea where we can recover. My sisters want me dead, so we must go."  
 _Yeah! Let's go!_ Eterna took the grotesque angelic child in her good arm, and started traveling to the Land of Seas. This newborn, was her Nachiel. She wanted no harm to come to him. How long would it take before her quest could start anew?


	3. Eterna's Prologue

"I was born with no name. My mother could care less what I was called by. She seemed to be unconcerned with me, at least, and she was only interested in how she could earn money with little work.

It was autumn, I knew that much. My burlap tunic itched incessantly as I sprinted to keep up with my mother, who was almost running to where we were going.

'Mother, I'm… really excited to see the goats we're buying today.'

'Yes, girl.'

The gentle dirt path gave way to sharp gravel that tore at my heels. We approached the barn, but the ground fell into large dark pits. I could see many people toiling in the mud.

"Mom, where are the animals?" She had no response for me.

A tall brooding man approached us, and my mother stood straighter to look him in his dead grey eyes. They made a deal of some sort, and I was taken away from her.

I learned from the girls in the trenches that my mother had sentenced me to a life of hard labor, in return for a meager sum of gold every month. I had no words.

The work was difficult, of course. I began to curse my mother for putting me in this situation, though I began to forgive her in time.

I had tried to escape the trenches multiple times, first with a girl named Amber, after her eyes. She had named me Emerald after my eyes that I had never seen before, as it never mattered to me. She betrayed me with the men we hated so much for forcing us into the trenches. I eventually killed all the overseers. I had grown tired of these people who believed they were better than us.

Living life on the run was difficult. Many of the trenches' agents came after me for my crimes, and I was almost taken back too many times to count. I only knew one time of peace, which was with a girl with fiery hair. Life was homely, and a life I had never known before. However, I contracted a deadly illness, and that pushed her away from me. She tried to sell me back to a life of labor, so I left under the cover of night, and traveled far north to escape her cunning.

The illness wasted away at my body, so I was eventually captured by authorities. I was thrown into a cell with five other girls, who has betrayed the Lord, as they had been his closest advisers. They were all brutally beaten, and died much earlier than me.

I could barely breathe at the end of my life. As I gasped for air, and my vision dimmed, I saw a glowing snakelike creature slither from the shadows. Its warmth filled me with peace at the end of my life.

Then I was a Arderer, a monster with the power of fire. The wyrm had taken advantage of my weakness, and compelled me to destroy humanity. I tried to rip out the monster by its tail, but it lost control. The wyrm would extract a great deal of my power.

Five young girls lay before me when I awakened. Each had a symbol on their foreheads, of some language I could not know at the time.

The sisters only speech was inhuman growls, possibly from the Wyrm. The ground sizzled at their feet.

'You should not be alive,' I said. The girls tensed, willed by the dragon, and as I took a swipe at the yellow one with my dagger, they all fled. Quick girls.

Not only did I have to deal with this dragon infesting my body, but I had to deal now with these parts of me, scattered across the realm. That is why I asked your previous incarnation, Nachiel, to aid me in destroying my sisters."

The shining watcher, Nakiel, covered his mouth with his feathered wings. "Eterna, you had such a difficult life! I really, really can't believe you went through such terrible things!"

"No need to repeat really, Nakiel. But this is all the truth of my life before you. Sandalphon, Alpha's watcher, is too powerful for you now. The wyrm inside of me will consume me. We should try to become stronger as we travel through this land."

"Yeah, Eterna! I'll be the strongest watcher you've ever seen! Just wait!"

"…Hmm. You think so?"

 **So Zero's, now Eterna's, prologue is just to establish how different Midgard is now. This will be interesting.**


End file.
